


Frostbite

by llyrical



Series: You & You & Me [4]
Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon)
Genre: Halloween, Hurt/Comfort, It could have been worse, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 05:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5117147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llyrical/pseuds/llyrical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Halloween has never been a holiday to Wirt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Frostbite

**Author's Note:**

> I said I wasn't going to do this because I was already hurrying to get the Parent AU fic done, but then I wrote down the first sentence and it sort of spiraled out of control from there. Not very long because I was hurrying to get it done before I go out for Halloween, but I thought this ship deserved _something_ to illustrate Wirt's feelings about Halloween.

Wirt dreaded the end of September, as it always brought with it the beginning of October. 

He didn’t think that Bill and Dipper realized, and he was fine with that. Dipper loved Halloween, and made no secret about it. He’d once rambled to Wirt for an hour about all of the mischief that he and Mabel had gotten up to as kids on the holiday. 

He wished he could be happy for his boyfriends, celebrate Halloween like a normal person. He worked and lived in a tourist trap that fed off of the fear of others, and they resided in a town full of actual horrors. He was a twenty-five-year-old man, and he should be able to handle seeing commercial celebrations of Halloween. 

But he couldn’t. Every year, the drop in the temperature, the leaves swirling across the ground (though much less here in Oregon than back home in Massachusetts), would send him back there. Back to the Unknown, as if he was still fifteen and had never escaped.

A week into October, his nightmares started back up. He’d gone so long with Bill blocking them out that he’d eventually stopped having them (mostly) on his own, but October always brought with it the worst ones. He’d relive his days in the Unknown, wandering a forest until the snow was up to his chest. He’d wake up freezing despite the pile of blankets covering him and the warm bodies on both sides of him. 

He’d dream about Greg accusing him of being a bad brother. Of telling him how it was Wirt’s fault that they’d ended up in the situation in the first place, if only Wirt hadn’t been such a coward, if only Wirt had gotten Greg out of harm’s way before worrying about himself, if only Wirt had been better, if only, if only. 

With each nightmare, he woke up with the sound of the Beast’s singing echoing in his ears even in the waking world. Even sandwiched between Dipper and Bill, the former asleep while the latter’s eyes were closed as he worked in the mindscape, he couldn’t stop hearing the voice. He laid paralyzed in fear until he could finally hear only the shallow breathing and the quiet purr of the house’s heating system. He would never fall back to sleep. 

But he didn’t want to ask Bill to help him with his nightmares. He didn’t want to admit that he was still being so horribly affected by something that had happened ten years prior. That even seeing the Halloween section of the supermarket was enough to put a pit of anxiety into his stomach. 

He wasn’t a good liar, but he hid it well. He let Dipper ramble about Halloween. He let Bill discuss classic monster movies and how they’d influenced today’s cinematography. 

On Halloween morning, when Dipper had run to the store to buy candy last minute for trick-or-treaters and Bill had disappeared into another realm for demonic business, Wirt called Greg. It was a Halloween tradition ever since he’d moved away. 

He’d spent the last few years alone on Halloween, curling up in bed in his apartment and pretending he couldn’t still feel the icy water washing over him, phantom pains ten years late. 

His call to Greg started out casually, just another one of their weekly conversations. They talked about Greg’s school and friends and how their mom was doing. Greg asked Wirt about work and about Bill and Dipper. He excitedly told Wirt that he and their mom had rushed to the bookstore on the day that Wirt’s poetry book was released and bought several copies, to which Wirt’s face flushed. 

“So, what are you doing tonight?” Wirt asked, trying to feign casualty. It was a loaded question. 

Greg was sixteen now. When Wirt was sixteen, Halloween had marked the one-year anniversary of how they’d almost died. At that time, he’d spent Halloween blocking out the world. He and Greg had sat alone in Wirt’s room with music playing from Wirt’s tape player and discussing, against Wirt’s wishes, their time in the Unknown. 

Years of therapy together had proven to Wirt that Greg was most unlike him in the way that he embraced their travels to Purgatory, while Wirt would have given anything to forget them. While Wirt just remembered the Beast, the icy chill of snow washing over them, and watching his brother almost be turned into a tree, Greg instead chose to recall befriending Beatrice, joining a band of frogs playing instruments, and all of the people they’d helped. 

Greg was the person who said hello to all of the bluebirds in a park, while Wirt was the one who’d run out of his sophomore Biology class whilst having a panic attack because they were doing a project involving tree branches. 

“Oh, I’m hanging out with a few friends,” Greg answered, a smile in his voice. 

Wirt froze. “You… you are?”

Of course he was. Greg wasn’t like him, wasn’t afraid to move on and enjoy a holiday for what it was- just that. A holiday. 

“Yeah,” Greg affirmed cheerily. “We’re just going to play video games and stuff, I think. It’s not really a party.”

Despite the clenching of his stomach, the sharp pain in his chest, Wirt forced a smile. He was happy for his brother, he really was, but he couldn’t stop the bitterness that arose as his self-loathing made itself clear in his mind. “That’s great, Greg,” he told him honestly. 

They talked for a while more, Greg musing about how he wondered how Beatrice was doing. They had the same conversation every Halloween, and it had eventually stopped hurting. 

Once they got off the phone, Wirt fell apart. 

He paced the living room, suddenly grateful for the emptiness of the Shack as he pulled at his hair and mumbled to himself. 

“Why are you so _broken_ , Wirt?” he asked himself, eyes on the ceiling and hands in his hair as he frantically paced. “Your brother can get over it, and he was much younger than you. He should have been more scarred than you. _He_ was the one who almost died, and _you’re_ the one who’s still hung up over this.” 

His voice cracked. His knees shook, so he dropped to the ground, burying his face in his arms and breathing heavily. “It’s just a holiday,” he muttered to himself. “It’s a fun day. It doesn’t matter that it’s the anniversary of the Unknown. It’s _just_ a holiday. Dipper loves Halloween and you need to learn how to have fun and stop being so _broken_ and-” 

“Wirt?” 

He froze, voice cutting off on a sob he didn’t realize he’d been holding back. He raised his head slowly, looking over towards the door where Dipper and Bill stood. Dipper’s hands were full of grocery bags full of candy, and Bill looked tired, as he usually did when he got home from working demonic politics. They both looked concerned, worry on Dipper’s face and a slight anger on Bill’s, though Wirt knew it wasn’t directed at him. 

Wirt stood shakily, trying to steady his breathing and pretend that he hadn’t been on the verge of an anxiety attack. He hooked his arms behind his head, looking anywhere that wasn’t his boyfriends as he mumbled, “H-hey. How much of that... did you hear?” 

“Enough,” Dipper answered before he dropped the grocery bags and crossed the room to fling his arms around Wirt. He held him tightly, showing no sign of letting up anytime soon, so Wirt returned the hug, ignoring the stinging of tears in his eyes. After a moment, Bill was there as well, arms wrapped around Wirt from behind and effectively sandwiching him in the middle. 

“I didn’t know that you don’t like Halloween,” Dipper said, voice muffled by the way his lips were pressed to Wirt’s neck. “Why didn’t I know that?” He sounded more angry with himself that anyone else. 

“It’s… it’s stupid,” Wirt mumbled, glaring at the wall over Dipper’s head. His voice came out shaking, fitting well with his trembling body. “It’s just… I can’t think of it as Halloween. It’s not Halloween. It’s the anniversary of the day my brother almost died because of me.” 

Both of his boyfriends pulled back quickly, Bill rounding him to give him an incredulous look. “You _still_ think that?” he asked with a frown. “Music Note, I thought you were over that.” 

Dipper looked concerned. “Wirt, that wasn’t your fault. You can’t keep blaming yourself for it.” 

Wirt stepped back, distancing himself from them a bit as his hands folded over themselves before latching onto loose threads hanging from his sweater. “It _was_ my fault, though,” he stressed, voice pitching up a bit as he tried to keep it from breaking. “It was all my fault and now I can’t get _over it_ and I should be able to, I should be able to just move on and focus on the holiday and on not bringing you down, but it’s _stupid_ and I’m _broken_ and-” 

“Wirt.” Dipper’s voice was firm. He stepped forward, a hand coming up to cup Wirt’s cheek with feather-light touch as he locked eyes with the poet. “That’s not true at all. You’re not stupid and you’re not broken. You’re smart and perfect and beautiful, and I love you. You have every right to dislike today if it stirs up bad memories.” 

Before Wirt could say anything, tears welling up in his eyes, Bill stepped forward and mused, “As a master of the mind, I can confirm that it’s not unusual for you to be feeling that way. Since you literally skipped planes of existence for a while, that’s guaranteed to take it’s toll on you, Music Note.” His eyes darkened, voice lowering a bit. “If I could get my hands on the Beast, I would torture him until his last breath for what he did to you.” 

Wirt shivered. 

“I’m fine,” he told them, but his voice gave him away. It still sounded weak and shaky. “I’ll be fine. Let’s have fun. It’s Halloween.” 

“Nope,” Dipper answered, turning away and going to retrieve his discarded bags of groceries. “We’re going to lock up the Shack and watch movies all day and all night.” Bill nodded in agreement, shooting Wirt a knowing look. 

Wirt frowned. “But there will be trick-or-treaters-” 

“So I’ll keep the porch light off.” Dipper turned back to face him with a grin, shaking the plastic bags. “More candy for us.” 

Wirt couldn’t stop the smile from creeping onto his face, even as Bill slipped an arm around his waist and rested his chin on Wirt’s shoulder. “Dipper, there’s, like, four _bags_ of candy right there.” 

The man shrugged with a smirk. “Junk food and cuddles are the best distraction methods, right?” 

Wirt’s breath caught in his throat. He choked out, “Right,” and blinked away tears. 

Maybe someday he’d get over it. Maybe someday it wouldn’t hurt to look at bluebirds or to feel fallen tree branches crunching under his feet. 

For now, it didn’t matter. He was safe, and he was loved, and he wasn’t broken.


End file.
